fussed in her sleep. Tam laid down alongside her, and stroked the child’s back. She wasn’t sure it was appropriate to take her nightmares into bed with the innocent toddler, but Rachel wouldn’t sleep on her own for love or money.
When she was being honest, though, she recognized that excuse for the cheap justification that it was. She just liked to be close to Rachel. She loved to watch her sleep, see the rise and fall of her little chest, the beatific relaxation in her face. To touch and snuggle that warm body. And she liked to be there when Rachel reached for her in the night. Right at the child’s fingertips. Instant gratification. The least she could offer, considering what Rachel had been robbed of up to now.
Just watching her was restful. Maybe she couldn’t get a decent night’s sleep herself, but watching Rachel get one was the next best thing. Tamara could lie there and feel that miraculous sensation that had taken her hostage in the aftermath of the organ pirate adventure. That hot softness in her chest. The melting.
The problem was, the rest of Tam’s emotional defenses were melting right along with her heart, and she was by no means ready to live without them yet. Scary.
Rachel rolled over and reached out, flinging a skinny but surprisingly strong arm over Tam’s neck, dragging her into a strangling, baby-soap, sour milk, and toothpaste-scented hug.
Tam grabbed the little girl, comforting herself with the warmth of that snuggly, wiry body. Rachel vibrated with life, glowing like a little sun. Being close to her fed something inside Tam that had been starving. Something she had thought was stone dead.
Rachel needed her so badly. Or rather, Rachel needed someone, and it had been the toddler’s questionable luck that Tam had been the one standing there, at the crucial psychological moment. Snap, click, and hey, presto…the kid was stuck to her like glue. And out of nowhere, Tam had suddenly come to crave being needed in return.
So strange. Where did that come from, after a lifetime of deliberately not giving a shit? After making not caring into a high art?
Rachel was barely three years old, and she’d had more crap luck than a lot of people pulled in an entire lifetime. Tossed into a sty of an orphanage at birth, scooped up by rapacious organ pirates to be broken down for parts, locked in a stinking windowless pen with a pack of desperate kids for months—it didn’t get worse than that.
Until you added in the fact that somehow, she’d managed to pull Tam Steele out of a hat for an adoptive mother. Yippee, what a prize.
And if that wasn’t enough, the mother she had chosen was getting twitchy and paranoid. Which was to say, more twitchy and paranoid than usual, which was really saying something, given her impressive list of mortal enemies. It was a strange sensation, but she couldn’t shake it. For weeks, she’d felt her grunting reptile brain looking back over her scaly reptile shoulder, telling her she was being watched.
Paranoia or genuine danger? Impossible to tell. Her instincts were good. But the emotions that had broken ranks and gone nuts inside her might have knocked even that out of whack.
She might never get it all wrenched back obediently into line. Chaos ruled, inside and out. She just had to get used to it.
Tam petted the fleece-covered back of the sleeping toddler, stroking the warm curve of the child’s head. Her fingers marveled at the spider-silk ringlets, the swell of her soft cheek, that flowerlike pink mouth, half-open, shiny with baby spit in the moonlight. Such a pretty little girl. Her breathing deepened, her heartbeat slowed, steadied. And then, that incredible feeling unfurled in her chest, like it always did.
Hot and soft…and so alive.
Alive. God help her. There was something alive inside of her, after all. She regarded that development with mingled terror and awe, not quite sure yet if it was good news or bad.
Moonlight crawled over the wall with agonizing slowness. Tam stroked the child’s back and just breathed. The crackle of gunfire still echoed stubbornly in her head, the shrieks of pain and terror floated up from the basement cells and reverberated through her memory. But if she just concentrated on Rachel, on how beautiful and small and perfect she was, she could get enough oxygen. She could walk that narrow line through the bad memories without falling headlong into a stress flashback.
It was hard. The dream images weren’t fading tonight. They’d sunk in deep. She’d be hearing that gunfire, those screams, all night long. But she would endure. She was all right. Just…breathe.
Part of her missed the cold numbness she’d felt before Rachel. It was a pain in the ass, being continually tossed and flung around by her emotions like a twig in a flash flood. She hadn’t expected that when she took the child. The impulse had taken her by surprise. She hadn’t had the presence of mind in the turbulent aftermath of the organ pirate adventure to consider what Rachel would do to her equilibrium.
Hell, she’d thought she could handle anything. She’d been keeping it together fairly well, after all. Flying under the radar, turning a nice profit with her business, paying her taxes, not getting in anybody’s face. Her current identity was holding up nicely, even under the pressure of drawn-out adoption proceedings, which was a testament to her unusual skill set. She’d been a bit bored, yes, after her supremely eventful former career, but the raid on the organ pirates had helped with the ennui. That thrill ride had been calculated to keep her going for a while.
Enter Rachel. Talk about adventure. Hah. Bye-bye, ennui. She had no time for boredom now. She was fried, trying to stay on top of it all. Blitzed by the hugeness of the responsibility. The massive snarl of bureaucratic red tape that comprised an international adoption. The appointments, the special foods, the allergies, the naps, the illnesses, the medications, the baths, the fits. The fears.
And even so, life without Rachel was now impossible to contemplate.
The miracle happened so quickly. Sneakily, too. That skinny monkey of a baby girl wrapped her arms around her neck and hung on for dear life, and the place where her heart was theoretically supposed had gone all hot and soft out of fucking nowhere. Something twisted, swelled, went pop inside her and—
The kid just got to her. Those huge, liquid brown eyes, so much like little Irina’s—ah, no. No. Don’t.
Tears were slipping down her face, hot and fast. Her chest vibrated with sobs so fast, they were a seamless, silent shudder.
God, she hated crying. She gently detached Rachel’s clinging arm, and slid out of the bed and down onto the blond bamboo floorboards.
Fuck this. She did not want Rachel to wake up and see her this way. Pull yourself together, Tamar. The kid had enough to feel insecure about already without watching her mamma come apart at the seams.
Tamar. She’d slipped into calling herself by her childhood name. And that stern inner voice had sounded so much like her mother. Odd. She’d been insane, to use something so close to her real given name for her alias. A suicidal impulse? Or just pique? Or simply a need to claim something real for herself. To make herself feel more coherent.
A tall order. But she was stalling. Up, Tamar. On your feet. Be the fucking grown-up here. There’s no one else to do it.
She dragged herself to her feet, stumbled into the bathroom and leaned over the big marble sink. She splashed her face, glanced into the mirror. That proved to be a mistake. Her sight of her own thin, hollowed face, her red, staring eyes, her blurred, shaking mouth—it did not help. Eeeuw. Bad. But once one of her crying fits started, there was no way out but through. She leaned over the sink again, ran water
